


Before you let go (and the light takes you in)

by Issay



Series: One-shot collection [10]
Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alaska, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Blood and Gore, Death, Demons, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Multi, Potential Triggers, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:05:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11380782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: Stiles makes one last errand - goes to leave flowers on all the other graves. Fuck, so many graves. The grief is as endless and as inescapable as the sky.He goes home and there is a thing wearing his father's face, waiting for him in the kitchen.





	Before you let go (and the light takes you in)

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this is dark: and by "dark" I mean much darker than I've written in a while. If themes of grief and depression may trigger you or have otherwise negative impact on you, please, take care of yourself, take this warm hug and close the page <3

Stiles has always thought that before a cataclysm happens there are signs forewarning that it’s coming. Birds leaving the area. Dogs howling, little kids crying, glasses shaking ominously in the cupboard. But this one comes unannounced with the small exception of a lone banshee screaming into the night.

Lydia screams until she can’t scream anymore. And then she finds her way home from the middle of the Preserve, books a flight to London, e-mails Jackson that she’s coming and packs a bag. She leaves a note for Stiles - it’s cold, she knows, but her screams are still echoing through Beacon Hills and she can’t bear hearing it anymore. It grows in her throat, swells like the food she didn’t want to eat when she was a kid. So she escapes Beacon Hills when she still can, not looking back, and leaving only a note on the kitchen counter.

Stiles later thinks that Lydia’s escape - his beautiful, strong Lydia, unbroken by all the shit they’ve been through now running scared, Jesus, who would have thought - was an omen unto itself but by then there’s no one left to share this with.

Forest rangers find Chris Argent two mornings later, his body half-eaten and left on the doorstep of the ruin that once was the Hale house. The pack mourns him, of course, but it’s not as heartfelt as it maybe should be, they bury him and Scott forces a buddy system on them until they’ve found whatever killed the most experienced hunter they knew. They grumble a bit, they’re all adults for fuck’s sake, with grownup lives and responsibilities, but they also know he’s right. And, well. He’s the Alpha. It still means something.

“Whatever this is, it’s in our territory,” growls Scott, angry and sad and probably convinced he’s failed Allison somehow. It’s been six years since her death but Stiles knows this pain will never go away. And Stiles knows that whatever scared Lydia into boarding a trans-Atlantic flight, it wasn’t just Chris.

He doesn’t say it, though, because the rest of the pack is still young and naïve and so wide-eyed it makes Stiles feel like he’s at least a century older than them. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s scared shitless and to make himself stop from slipping into a panic attack he checks escape routes from Beacon Hills and hides emergency weapons caches all over the place.

(If anyone sees their local history teacher hide silver blades under park benches, no one says a thing. By then the residents of Beacon Hills are used to the supernatural madness and take it with admirable stoicism. Or maybe it’s resignation?)

The unnamed enemy gets Theo and Hayden next, their bodies tangled together and left in the city square, their faces almost unrecognizable, and Stiles wants to scream. But he doesn't because someone has to hold Scott before he falls apart.

Malia goes missing three days later and the pack - or what is left of the pack, anyway - combs the Preserve for any sign of her. They don't sleep, they catch a bite of food here or there, they do everything they can and then some but they don't find her and Stiles knows somewhere deep in his bones that her body will turn up eventually, mauled and broken, the grimace of pain on her face to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Privately, he grieves in the darkness of his room, weeping for the girl he once loved, who used to wrap herself around him and sleep like the rest of the world didn't matter.

"We need to leave," Stiles says to Scott when they’re standing in the cemetery, studiously avoiding looking at Peter, who is still standing over his daughter’s open grave with a look of absolute disbelief on his face. "We need to pack our bags, take our parents and make a run for it, bro."

Scott shakes his head, still staring at the grave Allison shares with her father.

"It's our territory. It's our home," the Alpha answers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Don't come home," Stiles says to Lydia during a video call five days after they find Malia's remains, or what is left of them, on the steps of a church. "I don't think we're gonna get out of this alive."

She nods, her face pale and tear-stained. Stiles can see Jackson hovering over her shoulder and is glad someone is there for her. She shouldn't mourn them alone.

When she signs off, Stiles pulls up his e-mail and scribbles a short message to a man he hasn't seen in years but who still should be informed.

"Derek," he writes,

"I'm not sure if anyone has told you but things in Beacon Hills aren't looking good. DON'T COME BACK."

He has no idea what else to add so he just hits 'send' and refuses to think about it.

Two days after that it's Liam's head on the lacrosse field. Later that day they find Deaton, ripped to shreds in his practice.

"He didn't go without a fight," whispers Stiles into Scott's hair, holding on for dear life in the wreckage of the veterinarian's office, blood spatters everywhere, the pieces that once were their Emissary scattered on the floor. His best friend, his brother doesn't seem to notice, too wrapped up in his own grief and guilt. Stiles bodily drags the mourning werewolf out of there and then calls his dad.

They've already lost. Stiles knows it, it's only him and Scott left, and rabid Peter who roams the Preserve just like in the good old days. Sometimes Stiles hears him call Malia's name in the middle of the night. The end is near, he knows. Whatever is killing people, it's going after the predators and so far the only survivor is Parrish but the hellhound is in a hospital, in a medically induced coma, unable to tell them what the fuck they’re facing. So Stiles prepares. He gets his affairs in order, packs a go bag just in case Scott finally stops resisting and agrees to leave his territory behind, and waits.

Scott and Melissa die together when a blast rocks the neighborhood one peaceful night. When Stiles gets there the McCall house is already being swallowed by the roaring fire. It's fitting, in a way, he thinks through the fog of grief and despair, kneeling on the pavement. A funeral pyre for the True Alpha.

He's exhausted and numb and has left so much he doesn't even notice the pain anymore. Stiles goes home and packs his bags, then he packs his father's suitcase.

"We're leaving after the funeral," Stiles informs his father that morning, soot still on his face. "Two days and we're gone, dad. I'm done. I can't do this anymore."

John nods and leaves to hand in his resignation.

Stiles survives the next two days in the haze of endless phone calls and making plans without merit, and grief mixed with pain and disbelief. How does one lose everyone he's loved in just two weeks? And how does one uproot their life and just go somewhere else?

They empty the house and go to the funerals, two black coffins empty apart from some bones and a handful of ashes. Stiles sits in the front row with Rafe McCall and the whole town is there, people are crying, sheriff Stilinski is in his uniform for the last time, making sure no one disturbs the solemn peace.

"Go home and pack the crap you’ve forgotten," he instructs Stiles and they part ways. Stiles makes one last errand - goes to leave flowers on all the other graves. Fuck, so many graves. Erica. Boyd. Allison. Chris. Liam. Hayden. Theo. Malia. Melissa. Scott.

The grief is as endless and as inescapable as the sky.

He goes home and there is a thing wearing his father's face, waiting for him in the kitchen.

"Ready to go?" asks not-Dad, its black eyes wrong and terrifying. Stiles thought he has no more tears. He was wrong but that's no time for that so he chokes on a sob and reaches for a silver blade, a flask of salt and goes for the jugular, determined to take this thing down.

He does.

Stiles has at least three broken ribs and is bleeding from multiple cuts when he pours gasoline on the floors of his childhood home, on the dead body of what used to be his father before the cloud of black smoke took it as his own, and throws a lit match. Then he sits on the ground in the backyard and cries, howling out his grief until the darkness comes and claims him.

*

When he comes back to consciousness, he's on the front seat of a moving car.

"We just passed the state line," Peter informs him, his voice hoarse but eyes clear, present. Stiles takes it in without a word. His hands are covered in dried blood and soot, his clothes smell of smoke. There is luggage stacked on the back seat and Stiles notices that some of the bags are his, including his laptop case.

"Why?" he only asks. Peter is silent for a long time, seemingly focused on the road instead.

"I'm not doing this alone again," the werewolf mutters eventually and Stiles nods, feeling too drained to even protest. Lulled by the quiet and soft murmur of the road passing underneath the tires, he slips back into unconsciousness, greeting it with relief.

Peter wakes him up some time later - the sky is already dark and the air is considerably colder. North, then, Stiles thinks when he heads toward the gas station's bathroom with a bag in his hand. The bathroom is small but blessedly clear and empty so Stiles can haphazardly wash himself under the sink, brush his teeth, scrape blood from underneath his fingernails and change clothes. When he reemerges, clean and not smelling of smoke, Peter nods with what looks like gratefulness. Stiles realizes that the scent had to bring memories back. Right now, he doesn't really give a shit.

He accepts a bag of peanut butter cups, eats the treats without actually tasting them, and goes back to sleep.

"Where are we going?" he asks eventually, after countless miles stand between them and Beacon Hills. Even thinking the name of the town makes Stiles' heart clench painfully so he carefully avoids this topic, pushes it somewhere deep. There will be time to grieve. But not now.

"Juneau."

"Alaska?"

"Alaska."

"Well. Shit. As far as possible, right?"

"Yeah."

Comfortable silence falls between them. It's a long drive, filled with soft music from radio and several stops in hotels on the way. Peter insists on sharing a room. Stiles finds that he sleeps better when he can hear the other man breathe.

Before they cross the border with Canada, Stiles calls Lydia.

"I know, Stiles," she says before he can even open his mouth to greet her. "I've screamed for them. I'm so, so sorry, love. Are you safe?"

He can hear tears in her voice and she's truly concerned about him. Stiles is strangely grateful for that.

"I'm with Peter. I'll e-mail you new address when we get there."

"Get where?"

"Alaska."

The line falls silent for a long moment and then Lydia sighs.

"I'm not happy it's Peter but I'm glad you're not alone. But, Stiles? Be careful."

What for?, he wants to ask. But he doesn't because she'll feel guilty and he doesn't want to examine the possibility of actually having a future yet.

"Sure. I'll be in touch, ok? Take care."

He disconnects a second before it's polite to but he doesn't give a shit. With a sigh he stretches and goes back to the car, resigning himself to another few hours of sitting and mindlessly staring out of the window.

Somehow the mood in the car changes by the time they hit the Alaska Highway. Lighter, in a way. Like they're not running away from something but more like they're running towards something else.

Stiles doesn't count the days anymore. He has no idea what date it is, what day of the week. All he knows is that Peter dragged him out of the danger, saved his life by pretty much kidnapping him, and if Stiles wouldn't want to go to Alaska, he would ride in the trunk, tied up and gagged. It's twisted but the thought actually comforts Stiles. It's nice to still have someone who gives a shit, even if it's in Peter's own, very specific way. Of course, the fact that Peter lacks the idea of boundaries, free will or even asking for permission is another matter whatsoever.

Stiles falls in love with Alaska through the dull ache in his heart. He stares at the sky and the uneven, rolling ground, at the colors and textures and the astounding, soul-crushing loneliness of the road. Peter hums Mozart and they camp under the starry sky, so different from what they've been used to see back home. No. Not home. Beacon Hills is not and will not ever be home again.

They're just one-day drive away from reaching Juneau when Stiles finally breaks.

The air is cold and crisp, stars bright and so far away that somehow it unlocks the door Stiles had shut his grief behind. He stares at them and cries soundlessly, weeping out the pain and emptiness and the nightmarish quality of his last days in Beacon Hills. He remembers faces and discovers he's already started to forget how their voices sounded like, and it makes him cry even harder. He cries over lost opportunities and lives interrupted, over how innocent some of them were and how undeserving of their fate all of them were. He cries for his dad, he cries for how he's the last of his family and for how he doesn't have anyone's clogged arteries to worry about now.

He sobs and sobs, and when he's finally spent, Stiles is weak like a newborn kitten. He doesn't protest when a pair of strong, warm arms wraps itself around him and pulls him toward a solid chest. He lays his head over Peter's heart and listens to it beat. He doesn't have to look up to know that the werewolf is crying, too. It's sometimes so easy to forget, Stiles muses through the thick fog of exhaustion, that he's not the only one who's lost everything.

In the morning, after they wake on the cold ground tangled with one another, they don't talk about it.

They drive on.

*

Their life in Juneau is peaceful. The city is tiny, population 32 thousand, and it's so beautiful. Stiles understands why Peter chose it: it's small but not too small so their arrival doesn't raise any eyebrows. It's surrounded by forest-covered mountain and Peter disappears into the dark woods every full moon to run and howl to his heart's content. They settle in a cozy one-storey house in the outskirts of the town, woods pretty much in their backyard, and Stiles feels fairly safe. Their neighbors aren't overly friendly but no one gives them any shit for being two men living together so Stiles counts that one as a win. For the first three months they just settle in and slowly allow themselves to lower their guard. Sure, Stiles still has bottles of salt and mountain ash in his nightstand. Peter does regular perimeter checks every night and at some point Stiles sells some bullshit to a curious neighbor about Peter being an Army vet suffering from PTSD. Rumors travel fast and no one bothers them about it anymore, one old lady even catches Stiles in the farmer's market and says that it's nice to have someone patrolling the streets.

He has no idea what to say to it so he just smiles.

"I don't know if I can go back to being a teacher," he says one night, browsing through job listings. Peter looks up from the book he's been reading, some high fantasy shit.

"Why would you need a job, Stiles?"

"It feels weird, not having anything to do."

Peter only grunts, doubt clear in his voice but two days later, when Stiles has a panic attack after spotting some dark smoke over the rooftops, the werewolf doesn't say anything and instead just gets Stiles to breathe with him.

"Not fit to have a job," rasps the younger man later, still sitting on the floor, safe with Peter's chest to his back. "Got it."

"Maybe not in a school."

Stiles has to acquiesce.

They started with having separate bedrooms but after several bad nights Stiles gives up, takes his pillow and bottles with salt and ash, and moves to Peter's master bedroom. The other man raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything, instead just moves his pillows over and makes space for Stiles' comforter. Nothing has changed, it's still easier to sleep with another person to soothe the nightmares. They both have them. They scream out different names, though.

Six months after leaving Beacon Hills, Stiles gets an e-mail from Derek.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there" is all it says.

"Don't be stupid" he writes back. "If you were there, you would be dead now."

Lydia calls every week, shares little bits of gossip about members of the London pack Jackson is a member of, talks about the city and museums and how Stiles just has to visit. He promises that he will, eventually. Just not now when he's still trying to somehow find a way to heal.

Sometime in September Stiles gets an e-mail from Isaac.

"I don't think I can write a reply," he mutters, handing Peter the tablet. "I just can't."

Peter writes it instead and they spend that night wide awake, staring into the darkness and twitching at every sound coming from the outside.

"You'll want to talk to some hunters about it" is Isaac's reply, along with a string of names and numbers underneath. Stiles fortifies himself with some pills from his newest psychiatrist and calls the first person on the list, one Dean Winchester.

A week later he meets with Winchester and his brother in a tiny diner on the outskirts of Juneau. Peter's somewhere close, not willing to show his face to two infamous hunters.

Stiles orders coffee, black, two sugars, and doesn't even touch it. He talks, not looking at the two tired, sad men in front of him. He tells them about the Nemeton and how Beacon Hills was an actual beacon, about nogitsunes and werewolves and how at one point they've all lived in peace. His words are careful and soft as he discusses the banshee's screams and sudden deaths. His voice cracks when he tells them about brave, stubborn Scott and about the thing that looked like his dad but wasn't.

"Demons," says one of the Winchesters, the one with kind eyes and a face that in another life could belong to a lawyer or a doctor, someone trustworthy and smart. "I'm so sorry, man. You've never stood a chance."

Stiles nods because it's a bit of a relief, to know that even if he had found it sooner, it still wouldn't have changed the outcome.

"For... For the future. How do you stop a demon?"

"Give me your e-mail, I'll send you a PDF."

Stiles is a bit proud of himself for not having a panic attack before Peter drives him home and pulls him safely onto the couch.

"A fucking PDF," he whispers eventually, tears still streaming down his face. "A fucking PDF could have saved them all."

Peter says nothing but holds him tighter, until Stiles' world in filled with warmth and strong, steady heartbeat.

*

Healing is a slow process and sometimes it feels like they're stuck in one place. On those days, Peter takes him sailing if the weather's nice, the open space and unfamiliar sound of water help. There are some good days. There are some bad, like the one when Stiles found a soap his dad always used and had a breakdown in the mall, or like that night Peter couldn't shift back and kept repeating Malia's name. They avoid that first  Christmas, spend it like any other day, trying not to reminisce.

In the middle of the tough, Alaskan winter Stiles finds a job in the most unexpected place of all: a yarn shop downtown. He has no idea how to knit and doesn't know a lot about wool but the owner is a kind, maternal lady who spends two weekends teaching Stiles the difference between knitting and purling, and tells him all about alpacas, merino wool, hand-dyed skeins and yarn weights. Peter makes fun of him at first - but then Stiles gives him cashmere scarf, hat and mittens, all handmade, and Peter shuts up. The younger man sees him burrowing his nose into the luxuriously soft folds of the scarf and knows that part of it is the scent Stiles' fingers left.

Peter takes to cooking. First, he starts watching culinary shows, then equips their kitchen with spatulas and robots and accessories Stiles isn't even sure what they're called. He starts cooking - and Stiles learns to appreciate hot, home-made meals waiting for him when he comes home from work. Hearty pastas and thick, rich soups, grilled meat with salads, and fancy desserts. Of course, Stiles sees it for the escape that it is, just like his yarn shop, but doesn't say a word about it. After all, this too can be a sign of healing.

Somehow during the long, dark nights Peter-the-caretaker became Peter-the-friend, and then Peter-the-man in Stiles' mind. It should be a startling realization, really. But it isn't and Stiles just rolls with it, snuggling a bit closer in the night and making a point to touch the werewolf more often.

"You're playing with fire," Peter growls one morning after he wakes up with Stiles' ass pressing his erection. The younger man laughs into his pillow.

"Who says I'm playing?"

The second he says it Peter's arms grab and twist him so that they face each other, with Peter hovering over Stiles, tip of his still hard cock making contact with the younger man's hips. Stiles watches his face - and it should be wrong because this is Peter, his longtime frenemy, the man with an agenda, the backstabbing sociopath. But it's also the man who saved Stiles - even if he did it for selfish reasons, the man who holds him at night and who cracks mean jokes about their neighbors at five in the morning when they're both dancing on the thin line between anxiety and panic attack.

Stiles stretches upwards and catches Peter's lips with his, and allows the heat and the need to devour him. The werewolves’ fingers leave bruises on his skin as they melt into each other, tugging on clothes and ripping away the barriers between them. Is this Stockholm syndrome?' Stiles wonders briefly but Peter's hand encircle their cocks and the thought is gone in the rush of white hot static.

*

"You look good," Lydia says approvingly few weeks later. He knows she's right: he's gained weight, his skin isn't as pale as it was before, the dark circles under his eyes are almost gone. Stiles looks alive again. He knows he hasn't for some time.

"I feel better," he smiles, picking words carefully. She nods and the moment's gone, they're back to the usual chatter about his customers (lovely people, all of them, even if some are overly interested if the sheep that supplied the wool are being properly fed, how the fuck is Stiles supposed to know that?) and her latest mathematical conquest, her Oxford students, Peter's latest kitchen drama, Jackson's little power struggle inside the pack.

"She's right, you know," Peter says casually after Stiles has signed off and exited Skype. "You look better."

Stiles shrugs.

"I guess that's because I'm happy. Or, you know. Happier."

He presses a quick kiss to Peter's cheek and slips into the kitchen to steal a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie, and pretends not to notice the hopeful, stunned expression in Hale's eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Remembrance" by Legenda Aurea.


End file.
